Durham-based, on-demand car care tech startup Spiffy announced today a new $10 million investment from New Jersey-based Edison Partners. The new cash infusion is an extension of the $22M that Spiffy raised in October, pushing the Series B round to a total of $32M.
With the funding, Spiffy’s CEO and Founder Scot Wingo said the company will accelerate its “already rapid growth” and hire 10-20 more employees in the Triangle in the near term. Edison Partners’ Lenard Marcus will also be joining Spiffy’s board.
While the timing didn’t work out originally for Spiffy and Edison in October, Wingo is excited to work with the growth equity firm, which he says brings a great wealth of knowledge about later-stage companies and how to scale to the next level.
Marcus specifically has completed over a dozen late-stage investments and brings expertise from an industrial engineering degree and an MBA.
“We’re at this phase where we want to get big fast,” Wingo said, “so his experience there will be invaluable.”
Edison Partners was attracted to Spiffy because it’s a company that follows a national trend of giving customers their time back, Marcus said. The startup is offering a great service at a great price with greater efficiency for the auto industry, he said. Edison Partners also valued Spiffy’s experienced and smart entrepreneurial team.
Marcus is looking forward to being a part of the board and working with the Spiffy team as they turn it into a household name, he said.
“I’m excited because I feel like you have an opportunity to create a national brand in a relatively new category that can endure for generations,” Marcus said. “This company really has a unique opportunity, and I think the timing is now.”
Going both wider and deeper
Spiffy, which has evolved from a mobile car wash and detail service startup to a national brand for on-demand maintenance and vehicle care, is looking to continue its geographic expansion throughout the top 50 U.S. metropolitan areas.
This is while deepening its service offerings in existing markets. The most recent new offering is Spiffy’s Smart Tumbler, a device that enables fleet managers to remove odors from organic materials, smoke molecules and bacteria. [Editor’s Note: We wrote about the Smart Tumbler last week.]
“What’s fun is it can compound,” Wingo said. “If we add a new service, we can do that in 36 markets and across all types of customers.”
Every new investor on the board brings a fresh set of eyes, and that will help as Spiffy enters its next stage of growth.
Said Marcus, “There are several things that we want to focus on as we continue to scale—not necessarily to continue to scale but to enable us to continue to scale at this pace at this level of satisfaction. This company has extremely happy customers, which is always a great sign when you’re growing in the space.”
